Genius loci of shop houses in urban area: A case study in urban secondary cities in Sumatera Utara

Abstract

Generally, Shop houses in urban area appear dominantly, because it is very rational in term of economic and financial such as "cost and benefit analysis", is that absolutely right? These believed is a kind of simplification of the main issues in term of modernist and materialistic philosophy, since the local culture and the local architecture has been totally denied. A number of method has been applied to found and to identified local urban vernacular architecture. One among them is research on shop houses which socially adaptable with individual life of modern society but also accommodate the social aspect of local traditional life. This research basically is using qualitative method and focused on genius loci in shop houses in urban secondary cities in Sumatera Utara, where local culture and local architecture is still dominant. In this research Brastagi city in Karo regency will be posed as a study case. There is the main hypothesis on the spread of shop houses into the urban secondary urban cities because the shop houses have the great potential to make an adaptation with local culture and local architecture. In fact, the problems in this study is very wide, consequently, although research focused on architecture, other discipline has to be discussed namely philosophy and anthropology. With these method, the research revealing why the local peoples can adapt themselves socially and culturally with the shop houses. A number of research has focused on genius loci by using qualitative methods in order to find genius loci in architecture of Urban Shop Houses in Karo.